EJB and other parts of the J2EE provide an important environment
for rapidly creating flexible, adaptable applications. BEA, in their WebLogic
Server family, provide the most powerful, most complete EJB/J2EE infrastructure.
That's why Objectrad is a BEA WebLogic Partner.

Other capabilities

In addition to these specific capabilities, Objectrad has
a firm foundation in most all aspects of Java development, including VM development,
development for PDAs, and GUI construction using JFC.

Objectrad has demonstrated its expertise in the following Java Enterprise
technologies and important related areas.

EJB

Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) provides a component-based approach to solutions
targeted for execution in Application Servers. BEA WebLogic provides
a family of EBJ Application Servers that provide robust, scalable performance.
Their products are far and away the industry leaders in Java Server
infrastructure. However, once your EJB application is developed for
one vender's server, it can be easily ported to other vendors' EJB implementations,
removing the dependence on a single vendor.

Objectrad's EJB experience includes a CRM application running in the
BEA WebLogic Server. Additionally, our extensive experience in Java
Server development and the Java Enterprise technologies described below
has given us the solid background for EJB development.

XML

XML is providing a simple, flexible way to exchange information. XML
is really a metalanguage, since tags can be defined to represent all
kinds of information. Each specific XML language is defined by a DTD
(and soon by XML Schema). This means that XML can be used any kind of
information interchange.

Objectrad has extensive experience using XML to exchange information.
We employed a generic approach, allowing an application to generate
XML documents conforming to any DTD. Objectrad also had significant
involvement in the definition of the XMI interchange format, through
a contract with an OMG member. XMI defines an XML-based format for the
interchange of UML models and other forms of metadata.

Metadata

An enterprise's metadata defines the enterprise. It represents what
the enterprise does, and how it does it. Metadata is the information
about data - what kind of data is available and what it means. Metadata
also represents the workflow, activities, and business rules and logic.

Objectrad understands metadata (and even meta-metadata and meta-meta-metadata).
We developed a metadata server
that supported the definition of new forms of metadata, extension of
existing kinds of metadata, and transformations from one kind of metadata
to another. Objectrad also, through a contract with an OMG member, was
a key contributor to the definition of metadata industry standards.

CORBA

CORBA provides an industrial-strength enterprise middleware for distributed
computing. It is mature, robust, and interoperable with many platforms
and languages, making it a clear choice for enterprise-wide use, or
for legacy application integration.

Objectrad has made extensive use of CORBA for C++, Smalltalk, and Java
applications for the past 4 years. We understand the underlying technologies,
giving us a perspective on performance issues.

UML

The Unified Modeling Language (UML) defines a common way to represent
models. In solution development, models are a useful way to understand
and refine the solution. Models can represent high-level views, or specific
areas of interaction. Under a model-based development approach, models
can be refined to form the point of generated code for the application.

Objectrad has a close history with UML. We provided training on the
major precursor design notations. One Objectrad team member, GK Khalsa,
was a member of the core team that developed UML. Our metadata server
project included a repository for UML models, based on the UML metamodel.

Objectrad often uses UML notation in communicating among team members.
For technically-savvy clients, we sometimes use UML to represent proposed
solutions. We avoid a document-driven development approach, however,
which entails publishing a large number of detailed models.

JNDI

The Java Naming and Directory Interface (JNDI), part of the Java 2
Enterprise Edition, provides a common approach to accessing information
hierarchical, information by name, such as directories. Any number of
Service Providers can be plugged into JNDI to be accessed through this
common interface.

Objectrad developed JNDI Service Providers to provide distributed,
federated repositories through the common JNDI interfaces.

JDBC

Objectrad uses JDBC to access enterprise databases, such as Oracle,
Sybase and SQL Server. We balance the often conflicting goals of vendor-neutrality,
application performance, and development time. We have a deep understanding
of the issues involved in mapping application objects to database elements,
gained through years of implementation experience.